The back-thinning of product substrates is often necessary in the semiconductor industry and can take place mechanically and/or chemically. For purposes of back-thinning, in general the product substrates are temporarily fixed on a carrier, there being various methods for the fixing. The carrier material can be, for example, films, glass substrates or silicon wafers.
Depending on the carrier materials used and the interconnect layer used between the carrier and the product substrate, different methods for dissolving or destroying the interconnect layer are known, such as, for example, the use of UV light, laser beams, the action of temperature, or solvents.
Stripping increasingly constitutes one of the most critical process steps since thin substrates with substrate thicknesses of a few microns easily break during stripping/peeling or are damaged by the forces that are necessary for the stripping process.
Moreover, thin substrates have hardly any stability of shape or none at all and typically curl without support material. During handling of back-thinned wafers, therefore, fixing and support of the wafers are essentially indispensable.